Below are links to news articles that may be of interest to followers of the progress of Kythe Robert and Matthew L. Scroll to the bottom for the most recent news.

Suggested news sources include: Gasing , CNN , MSNBC , AAP , Guardian , Google

Embedded reporters might include: Letta Taylor-Newsday with Golf 2/5, Itsuo Inouye-AP, Richard Tomkins-UPI, Chip Reid-NBC, Mike Cerre and Mike Elwell are ABC embedded reporters with fox 2/5 of the 1st marine division all ABC news links are related to Mike Cerre.

JANUARY AND FEBRUARY NEWS ARE NOW MOVED HERE, THEY DO INCLUDE UPDATES AND ADDITIONAL LINKS

hierarchy= 1st division, 5th regiment, 2nd batallion, company, platoon. do i have this right?

MARCH 2003 Notes and News

3/1/03

Letter written by Kythe to Mom

3/9/03

in the back of 'tracks' http://more.abcnews.go.com/sections/nightline/World/marine_unit_030309.html

3/11/03

pray for peace

http://more.abcnews.go.com/sections/nightline/World/marine_unit_030316.html

3/13/03

So far, only fight is against time

Troops train, maintain equipment as they await further orders

By Jim Landers / The Dallas Morning News

CAMP GRIZZLY, Kuwait –

What do you get when you spell Kuwait without the "Ku"? About 20,000 Marines deployed with the 1st Marine Division in northern Kuwait are finding out as they wait for orders from President Bush for a possible attack against Iraq.

In the meantime, they clean their rifles, oil their tanks, check their gunsights – wait and try to keep ready.

Lt. Col. Mike Oehl, the commanding officer of 2nd Tank Battalion out of Camp Lejeune, N.C., is hosting a talent show Thursday. He plans to parade the hidden talents of his tankers on a truck trailer bed serving as a stage. No more than six Marines in any one act, and not too raunchy, Col. Oehl specified.

Maj. Gen. James Mattis, commanding officer of the 1st Marines, said he's using the time to prepare, to refine his plans, to read the intelligence that lets him watch his potential enemy.

"The young guys are impatient. They want to get home to those number-one girls," he said. "We're not out here to fight a good war. We're here for political reasons, and we accept that."

Make no mistake. The Marines are ready and waiting for war.

Their attack plans are drawn, rehearsed and rehearsed again. There are nearly 60,000 Marines in northern Kuwait ready to spring north like a whaler's harpoon. They have tanks, missile-launching humvees and eight-wheel armored vehicles. They have F-18 and Harrier jets and Cobra attack helicopters. They have regiments of infrantrymen who travel in supercharged amphibious tracked vehicles ready to speed across the desert.

For now, however, horseshoes, not artillery shells, arc across the Camp Grizzly sunset. A New York reserve company of tankers set up a bowling alley in their wood-floored tent. There are boxes and bags of mail, a few hot meals, a few shower stalls.

Journalists wait, learn

For what promises to be at least several weeks, the 2nd Tank Battalion will also find diversion in a trio of journalists. Rob Milford of CBS Radio News, formerly of KRLD news radio in Dallas; Dallas Morning News photographer Cheryl Meyer; and I joined 2nd Tank Battalion on Wednesday morning.

Our wait is a busy one, for there is much to learn about being with the Marines.

Navy Lt. Erik White, medical surgeon for the 1st Marine Division, told the media to avoid health problems by following the example of their new desert companions. "Do what the Marines do, except when they play with dangerous animals," Lt. White said.

If war comes, we will go with the 1,000 or so Marines in 2nd Tank Battalion. We wear our chemical warfare gas masks on our hips everywhere. We have helmets and body armor, chemical warfare suits, boots and gloves, satellite phones and laptop computers.

There were two "Gas! Gas! Gas!" alerts Wednesday, both of them drills. Staff Sgt. Steve Chavez of Raton, N.M., was just about to put a wad of Red Man in his mouth when the first alarm sounded.

Lucky timing. If a Marine is chewing tobacco when a gas attack occurs, the procedure is to don his mask, attach a canteen to the metal straw embedded in the mask, swirl some water with the tobacco and swallow.

"It was a close one," Sgt. Chavez said.

Someone in the Pentagon had the bright idea of sending chickens out to forward-deployed units like the 2nd Tank Battalion to warn the troops if Iraq uses chemical or biological weapons.

All but one of the five chickens – Alpha Company's "Thor" – choked to death on the sand and dust. One of Col. Oehl's Marines with a farming background (Col. Oehl is from Long Island, N.Y.) explained that to keep the chickens alive, it would be necessary to clear their beak nostrils daily with something the size of a paper clip.

This did not happen. Thor, a hardy chicken, lives on, but without much use as a canary of chemical warfare in the desert.

Commanders serve

Col. Oehl is sensitive to how waiting can take the edge off his men. To keep watch on morale and spot any signs of glum Marines, the colonel, his officers and sergeants serve chow.

Each private and corporal goes through the mess hall at breakfast and dinner getting his plate, plastic dinnerware, food and condiments served to him by his bosses. Col. Oehl and his staff, meanwhile, get to look into the faces of all their men.

"We've had some guys get Dear John letters since we've been out here," he said. "You want to keep on top of those things."

So we wait.

3/16/03

Rob Milford's War Diary

CBS Radio Correspondent

http://216.239.39.100/search?q=cache:YjQYUlN_baUJ:www.pressclubdallas.com/milford.htm+Rob+Milford&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Sunday Night, 3/16, Kuwait City

Got back to Kuwait City for one night. a hot shower, indoor and unshared plumbing, a bed. And dinner at Chili's, (steak, mashed taters, ice cream, brownie, three cokes...) Luxury. Bliss. Civilization in the shower stall.

The President is talking from the Azores as I write this. Doesn't matter what he says.

We're going.

I know we're going, and I know where I'm going, and what I'll be riding in, and what my view will be, and what I will see the first 36 hours of operations.

Except I can't tell you.

Let's go back in time, first, to last Tuesday..."The Day of the Embeds" loading up before 7, and getting in the CBS Tahoe for the 25 mile trip down south to the Kuwait Hilton Resort.a 45 minutes wait to drive through security, then they want to x-ray all our luggage ... all for all the 160 reporters the Marines put in the field. No dogs, just the Kuwaiti security types...

A wait to load...then drag bags across the parking lot (nothing like we briefed) and get into poorly marked and non-air conditioned busses for the trips out to the desert. We started with 160. About 60 to the First Marine Division, which is the fighting force for the USMC in country.

A huge herd of Camels as we go through one security check point, west of the city. Must have been 150+ humps out there on the open range, a variety of size and color....yes, the little ones were cute.

The desert is barren and empty. The color comes from painted electric towers, from green and several shades of tan on military vehicles, and that's all you see now.

To a base camp, called "Matilda" where division HQ is. Load your gear off the busses, drag it in a "Haji tent" good for 100 men, or about 55 male reporters. Women in another tent. They use these tents in Mecca for those Muslim holy trips... we're using hundreds, if not thousands of them coming in three sizes. They are barracks, chow halls, and even chapels for the brigades, regiments and battalions.

Oh, did I mention we are sleeping on a plywood floor? No A/C, just our sleeping bags, foam pads... that's it. Porta potties for everything, chow hall about 300 yards away. An MRE for lunch, meetings, NBC briefings, and practicals, more briefings on procedures, etc. etc.

Next morning, breakfast. English cooks can ruin an egg better than anyone. hard and chunky. worst ever. Glad to have it. No toast, just slices of bread, frozen butter.

A bit later, load gear on big and I mean BIG, 7 ton Marine trucks. parked, oh, 150 yards away. No skycaps. Make two trips. Load gear on wrong trucks. I'm going to 2nd Tank Battalion, not the 1st ! Shock and surprise. It's OK... only three reporters in total to that unit.

We will be first across the line... the border...no doubt about it. You will hear my reports then.

What was 160, then 60, reduced to about 25 to the 5th Marine Regimental Combat Team. (5RCT) Then, split to the battalions. Each gets 4 to 6. This is real up close journalism.

Ok.... we had been in camp about an hour when the cry of GAS GAS GAS runs through the camp at the speed of sound. It focuses you unbelievably. Your heart pounds, you know this could be the real deal. It's not a drill...you rip the mask out in seconds, slam in on your face, trying to remember everything you were told, hope you don't screw up, because it's YOUR FREAKIN' LIFE at stake here...that last breath outside of your mask could have been just enough to get some toxic nerve bug germ deep into your lungs, which will blow out in a bloody pulp in about 10 seconds. Your heart is in your throat, but feel good that you were as quick as some of the Marines, and they do this for a living.

OK... just a drill. Sweat had formed inside the mask... you wipe it out, put it away, and exhale. The warning system is sporadic, or should I say spastic. Another drill 90 minutes later, this one while I'm on the air... and I drop the phone, talk through the gas mask, and the station in Buffalo thinks it's cute... keeps asking about "drills" and I tell them.... "Who said it was a drill???" This could be the real thing. We're that close to the border. Within Artillery range.

OK....dinner with the troops. No tables. You sit on the ground, or in an adjoining tent, on a box of water, or MRE box. Dust everywhere. The unit commander has put us in 2-man tents...we each get one. 75 yards to the toilets. 200 yards to the chow hall. Power is 25 yards away. We walk everywhere.

Wednesday night. Sandstorm. After dark. A face full of sand starts it off... and it gets worse. and it keeps getting worse. the wind is picking up... and up again, and more and more dust and dirt and sand and grit is blowing. I make it across camp with borrowed goggles. Into my tent. Seal everything up, and the dust keeps blowing in.

I have to pee, badly. That 1.5 liter water bottle is empty. Not for long.

I wrap a scarf around my face, put the goggles on... close every case, bag and baggie I have... the dust floats in, talcum powder fine.

As isolating experience. In Hurricanes, even at night, you see lights, you're with other people... in a shelter, something. In Texas thunderstorms, ditto. sharing a tent, having a beer, saying "this shore looks bad"... and "whoa, that lightning was close enough to lite a cigar". Not here. Alone. in a little nylon tent. The wind gusting, the pebbles and grit pelting your thin layers. There was nothing to do. Flashlight had been on, batteries dead. Doing it all by Braille. The nail that had been glued on after a finger crushing in December, pulls off. Painful. Still rooting in my bags, more grit comes in. The wind hits 40, and then 50 miles an hour. Nothing to block it, except my tent. I uncork my sleeping bag, get under it. lay back. the plywood shower stall 20 feet away flips over in the wind, crashing down. No other light visible. The generator 40 yards away, can't hear it against the wind. Wind hits gusts of perhaps 60... hard to tell. Can't see more than 10 or 15 yards (Of course I have to look outside...!)

The only salvation was: The only stuff west of me, into the wind, were about half of all the tanks in the United States Marine Corps. M-1A1 Abrams Tanks. 60 tons. No wind will move them.... maybe a little sand blasting, might be a little dirty, but they're not flipping over and smashing my ass into the sand.

I fall asleep. Wake up at 3:30, 5 hours later. The worst has passed. Grit on everything. Dust in my mouth, ears, nose, eyes, lungs, mucus membranes, you name it. When I fart, it comes out dust. Next morning, in the porta pottie...it's not the toilet paper that's scratchy...it's the dirt on my ass, which had been under two layers of clothes, under a sleeping bag, inside two layers of nylon tent. That's SERIOUS dust.

I trust my description paints the picture for you? One thing about the Marines in the desert. They are OUT THERE, Isolated. They have no e-mail. No phone, no TV broadcast... just every three hours, a poorly read English language newscast. They listen to everything pertaining to Iraq, Kuwait and the US Military, or the President. They tune out everything else.

There is no way to compare it to you, right now. There are no papers, except for Stars and Stripes, a week or more old. You have heard news today, on the radio, had CNN on in the Kitchen, tuned to Fox for the top of the hour update, read the newspaper.

These 957 guys would kill to read the want ads right now, they're so starved for something new.

Did I mention that we're going ?

This war has shown the failure of the post office, USO and every other relief organization. No more "Any Soldier" mail that resulted in pen pals, marriages, etc, from the last war. In the age of terrorism, can't trust that stuff. Where's the VFW, American Legion, sending Care Packages to specific platoons, companies, battalions? Beef Jerky and paperback books. Pringles and Doritos in a can (someone call Frito Lay in Dallas, have 'em send over 960 cans to the 2nd Marine Tank Battalion, 1st Marine Division) ((get the address from Camp Lejuene, N.C.) Spicy stuff.. a variety. People send potato chips in bags. They're crumbs by the time they get here... all of 'em. The stuff in cans is great. Baby wipes. Yeah, I know, Marines and Baby Wipes. Clean your face, gas mask, or your feet at the end of a long day in combat boots, and change your socks every three days.

Every day is Groundhog Day. The same. looks the same, sounds and smells the same. Variety. Needed.Morning formation.... one morning PT followed by a run... Take half a day off from training, but most men train anyway, go over plans, talk shop.

You clean your weapons, daily. You go over your vehicles, starting them every other day, run for 15 minutes...exercise the tracks every three or four days...

No porno allowed. No booze. The CO had officers go through the gear, they did a round up. They burned the porno (Playboy, Penthouse, and more) and poured all the booze into the fire. A lot of "grown men" cried at that, a couple of weeks ago. You're dealing with mostly 19-23 year olds...You guys remember how we were, right? You ladies were subjected to the worst of our behavior at that time of our lives.

The talent show Friday night was a huge hit. Lots of inside jokes... got cheered when introduced as being from Texas (should have brought a Texas flag, duh) The female photographer, Cheryl Meyer, from the Dallas Morning News, got 45 seconds of cheering from the troops, they had not seen a woman, in uniform, or out of uniform, face to face, in 6 weeks. She blushed for two days ( I have it on tape).

So, I decided that after 2 weeks in country, five nights sleeping on the ground, I deserved a day off. Sunday, noon, driving into Camp Commando, west of Kuwait City. one hour there. another hour waiting for a cab, or catching a ride with a CBS crew... whoa... walking in dirt and dust, then sitting in the Air Conditioned Tahoe with 500 miles on it... whoa. cold coke from the cooler... luxury. walking with a swagger into the Sheraton, gas mask strapped to my waist... feeling very salty, and dust stirred by every step. I reverse the process Monday.

We are going. This week. Book it. Plan on it. Maybe in time for my birthday. I will ride with the spearhead, XX (censored) kilometers into Iraq in the first two or three hours of the land war.

Prior to that, we will have a communications embargo. No outgoing calls, cell or sat phone. After the war starts...in the words of the great Keith Jackson...."WHOA NELLY".. I will be melting those circuits.

I am fine, have lost at least 5 pounds...at the stores this afternoon, scooped up a bunch of stuff for the Marines I'm with. I am eating, but not well (no one does). Drinking more water than at any time in my life.

We are going. I am going with the Marines. A privilege to be with this group of young men, who are putting THEIR ass on the line for their country. The tanks are a very elite community within the Corps...disparaged in peacetime, (They cost too much, burn too much fuel... we're not "light fighters, quick to move"). Now, they are highly sought after, because, we're going. And everyone wants a land based battle ship in front of their troops.

They are planning for a pitched armor battle somewhere south of Baghdad, to smash the Republican Guards two armored divisions. We have most of the Marine Corps tanks with us. We will need them. We will convert those two divisions to scrap metal, because...we're going.

3/18/03

A Few Good Chickens by Chip Reid-NBC

http://www.msnbc.com/news/886924.asp

3/20/03

Letter written 3/1/03 rec'd by mom, interview with the monterey herald

3/21/03

going in

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/nightline/World/cerre_notebook_030321.html

KimMarie Gaye keeps her TV tuned to ABC.

It's not "Alias" that has her riveted. Her interest is much more personal.

She's looking for her son.

He's Cpl. Kythe Robert Stillwell of the U.S. Marine Corps, and his unit is moving through Iraq. ABC News correspondent Mike Cerre is "embedded" with them.

Gaye, of Pacific Grove, says she's trying not to obsess over the news, but it's hard when her son is on the front lines.

"At night, when I can't sleep, I watch it for hours on end," she said Thursday, about an hour after her son's unit crossed the Iraqi border. "We're focused on Kythe."

She's not alone. In Fresno, Stillwell's grandparents also mine the TV for information about their grandson, a 1999 graduate of Pacific Grove High School.

"We haven't had ABC turned off. The newsman that's in Kuwait has been broadcasting right where Kythe is, so we're following him down the line," said Eleanor Pozar, 79, Kythe's grandmother. "They are so free with the information that they hand out now, it's amazing."

Pozar said the flow of facts and speculation about their grandson's position doesn't bring relief, though.

"I don't call being at the front very comforting," she said. "Luckily, we can see the things going on. We are able to somewhat keep track of him."

The news isn't the only place where the family gets information about Stillwell. Gaye also finds it on the Web, networking with other Marine moms on sites and chat rooms. The other day she found a picture of her son on a Marine Corps Web site. He was posing with a buddy in front of his "Amtrak," the giant tanklike troop carrier he drives into battle.

"I know that there are a lot of moms and dads out there, and boyfriends and girlfriends, and we are all for our kids," Gaye said.

On the Web, she reconnected with acquaintances from years ago who also have a son in the Corps. She learned that the two Marines, who had been childhood friends, had run into one another in the Kuwaiti desert.

"Our two sons are actually out there together," she said. "There's 50,000 Marines out there and the chance of two guys who grew up together in the San Joaquin Valley to find each other is pretty incredible."

But the best source of information, she's found, doesn't depend on fiber-optic lines or coaxial cables. Like millions of mothers before her, an old-fashioned letter gives Gaye reassurance.

Since her son shipped out for Kuwait on Feb. 3, she's received two letters from him. The latest arrived this week on U.S. Marine Corps stationery emblazoned with the Corps' anchor-and-globe logo and a half-toned print of the flag-raising at Iwo Jima.

His grandfather served in World War II, his father in Vietnam.

Now, Stillwell's prose rings with the echo of past dispatches.

"To tell a little about here, it's sandy and brown, as far as the eye can see. But life here is not so bad, just very simple," Stillwell writes. "I find myself enjoying laundry days and time to shower -- that's how I spend my weekends out in the sand."

Stillwell's letters are filled with details both personal and mundane, urging his mother not to worry about him and thanking her for keeping up with his bills while he's gone.

To soothe her worries, Gaye prays a lot, and, at night, writes poetry:

"I want my son at home now,

I want to feel him near,

But news is on the TV,

And all I feel is fear."

(Link to original poem)

3/23/03

Invading Marines' Top Rule: Use Caution (full text)

http://www.newsday.com/ny-wofront0323.story

Letta Tayler - Staff Correspondent

March 23, 2003

Ramallah Oil Fields, Southern Iraq

-- The amphibious assault vehicle slithered across the gravely sand of northern Kuwait, through a massive hole cut in concertina wire.

"Congratulations! You've just invaded another country," Lt. Phillip Sprincin told the dozen members of his fire support team crammed inside the vehicle in darkness as black as Iraqi crude about 10 p.m. local time.

That was one of the last quips among Sprincin's team members in the 36 sometimes harrowing hours that it took the Marines' Regimental Combat Team 5 to cross the border from Kuwait and seize the Ramallah oil fields, site of an Iraqi army battalion and one of the most fertile petroleum facilities in southern Iraq.

The foray by the combat team, one of the first by U.S. ground forces entering this country and the one to push the farthest north, was short in miles but fraught with tension. Despite massive U.S. air raids, pockets of Iraqi resistance fired on these advancing forces, filling the moon-lit desert with sparks, thuds and booms. Iraqis also lobbed mortar rounds toward Marines guarding the sprawling Ramallah installation of pumping stations and gas-oil separation plants, which U.S. forces had seized swiftly to prevent Iraq from setting it ablaze.

U.S. F-18s caused further panic by bombing the oil facility in friendly-fire error as many Marines were sleeping in the open air. One bomb carved a crater in a gravel lot where hours earlier, more than 20 Marines had been stationed.

But in the end, the entire Regimental Combat Team 5, which includes several thousand forces, survived intact -- down to Stew, the gray pigeon who rode with Sprincin's team to warn the Marines of a chemical or biological attack.

More than 300 Iraqis surrendered, most of them soldiers, including two generals, a lieutenant colonel and a major. One man waved a mattress in lieu of a white flag and one woman wrote on her hand, "U.S.A. Okay."

Sprincin, 24, of San Francisco, leads a fire support team that helps protect the Golf Company infantry unit of the 2nd Battalion within Regimental Combat Team 5. The group calls in enemy positions so the Marines can strike with bombs, mortar or artillery. The 2nd Battalion is the most decorated unit in the Marines, and Golf Company -- a.k.a. "The Grim Reapers" -- does its best to carry that torch.

As such, bravura abounded as the fire support team neared the Iraqi border Thursday evening, even though everyone inside was dressed in charcoal-lined camouflage suits and clumsy rubber boots designed to protect them against a biological or chemical attack.

"We're gonna rock this country!" crowed Cpl. Mark Hylen, 22, a wise-cracking forward scout in the fire support team from Brownsville, Calif.

Further emboldening the team was news that U.S. war planes had obliterated key Iraqi observation posts along the border with 40,000 pounds of satellite-guided J-DAM bombs. The aircraft also cratered a strategic bridge and struck Iraqi forces amassed on either side of it.

But a scream of "Down! Down! Down!" shortly after the group crossed the border quickly dampened the mood. Fire support team members slammed shut the ceiling hatch from which they'd surveyed the enemy's desert landscape with night-vision goggles and crouched low on their benches.

"Uh-oh, a rank round," Sprincin said.

Iraqi T-55 tanks fired a round of shells a few miles north of the fire support team, striking an M1 Abrams tank and knocking out its road wheels.

Scattered fire flew back and forth between the Iraqi and Marine tank units over the next several hours, but only the Iraqis appeared to have suffered losses. Re-opening their cargo hatch at one point in that long night, the Marines in the fire support team watched in awe as U.S. forces' multiple-launch rocket systems soared through the sky like fireflies, suspending for several seconds in dazzling illumination before fading into oblivion.

Mirroring the rockets' brightness were flames as high as skyscrapers shooting from oil trenches and oil wells that Iraqis had set on fire. In the shadows, groups of bedouins and camels moved through the desert, as if oblivious to combat -- this desert after all was battle ground for millennia for the armies of the Assyrans, Parthians, Sassanians, Ottomans and elephant-riding Persians.

It was afternoon before the long caravan of Golf Company armored carriers and Humvees rolled into the oil facility, about 30 miles north of the Kuwait-Iraq border, under eerily calm skies. The desert complex resembled a ghost town, with a few lone dogs, apart from the Marines, the only visible living creatures.

Lying abandoned were vast dug-outs for Iraqi solders. Hussein's troops apparently had fled just hours earlier, leaving behind uniforms and mounds of weapons including mortars, AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades. A firing range and underground weapons caches showed this had been a military base as well.

The complex appeared secure when night fell. Then crashing thuds filled the air and sent the Marines, many of whom had been sleeping, scrambling in the dark for their gas masks. A 500-pound bomb had landed in the complex, about a mile from the fire support team's site. A second, 1,000-pound bomb followed a few minutes later in an area where Marines had been stationed earlier, sending additional shockwaves. Only hours later did the Marines learn that their own forces had dropped the bombs in error.

Huddled in the fire support team assault vehicle in darkness as black as Iraqi crude, many Marines awaiting the end of the artillery rounds dreamed of the moment they'd be home.

"I can't wait to go home and hold my baby," confided Lance Cpl. Gregory Plaisted, 20, of Tampa, whose first-born is due in October.

One platoon in the 2nd Battalion shot and wounded two men who failed to stop at a checkpoint. They were civilians driving through the Ramallah complex to see a relative on the other side. Other encounters were more mundane. "Habla Español?" one Marine asked a surrendering Iraqi man when it was clear he didn't understand English. The Iraqi's baffled look indicated the answer was no.

Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.

3/24/03

500 Iraqis surrender by Letta Taylor

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-wopows243188024mar24.story

3/25/03

Sandstorms

http://more.abcnews.go.com/sections/world/Primetime/iraq_main030325.html

3/26/03

nightly news- Mike Cerre reports he is with the 3rd? under fire and just south of Baghdad.

Brotherhood of the dust

Letter home describes the grit shared by a News photographer and 6,000 Marines

http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/sundayreader/stories/033003dnsuncheryldiaz.3b0b4.html

By CHERYL DIAZ-MEYER / The Dallas Morning News March 26, 2003

Dear Family and Friends,

Whistles, cheers and thunderous clapping roar in my ears. Forty-five seconds. An eternity of applause. It's as close to Marilyn Monroe as I'm ever going to get.

I can't help but smile and try to ignore the deep embarrassment that is welling inside me for this attention I do not deserve and did not earn.

In truth, they are cheering not for me, but for their womenfolk – their wives, their mothers, their sisters, their daughters – and I represent all of those people to them. I am the woman they have missed for weeks and months. I am the woman for whom they long. I am the woman for whom they will survive this war.

Before me is a crowd of about 2,000 U.S. Marines. Sweat and dust cover tanned faces. Sweat and dust weave into the threads of khaki uniforms. They stand in the cool evening of a Kuwaiti desert in the barracks called Camp Coyote, home of the Second Tank Battalion, where I have been embedded with my writer, Jim Landers.

Lt. Col. Oehl has announced a talent show to keep spirits up, and the Marines take this opportunity to strut their stuff – the good, the bad, and indeed, the ugly.

It's not quite real, and yet the clapping reverberates in my heart and reminds me that the dust and grit is very real. And each person there knows that, with every hearty laugh and every good-humored joke, we will go to war, and it is highly likely that some of us will not return.

Big brothers

I have been living with 6,000 men in a camp where only a handful of women have stepped. I have come to know many friendly faces who have treated me with respect, generosity and kindness. I have grown to be so fond of a group of men who come from all over the United States to serve their country and endure tremendous obstacles to see that our government's wishes are fulfilled. I have been adopted; and I have inherited a thousand big brothers.

On the morning that President Bush was scheduled to make his speech declaring war, we were awakened with a start at 3 a.m. and told to pack: We were leaving in three hours for war. In the dark, I made quick decisions about what to bring and what to leave in my secondary bag, the one that follows in the field train some eight hours behind. We were supposed to have two days' notice to prepare.

War's shorthand

And so we loaded into our AAV, an amphibious assault vehicle, that was to take us into Saddam Hussein's never-never land. We traveled for several hours, being bounced around in the back of our metal box. We set up camp at the DA, dispersal area, only to be told hours later to tear down our tents immediately. We had to move closer yet to the border. At that site, we intended to stay a couple of days – until news trickled in that the GOSPs, gas oil separation plants, were being set on fire in the south of the country. Several times that day, we were thrown into high alert when artillery was fired on another group of Marines several miles away. We suited up in our full NBC suits, nuclear biological chemical suits, sweating our brains out in over 100-degree desert temperatures.

So once again, we hurriedly tore down tents and threw our belongings together to cross the DA ASAP so we could save the GOSPs. It seemed that this whole military embed thing was really a tactical maneuver to give all of us journos the workout of our lives, and a heart attack to boot.

Our trip into Iraq was mostly exciting because a couple of ABC television reporters joined us. They, along with my reporter and a CBS radio fellow, stomped around the inside of our AAV, trying to get a good angle on the few mortars and artillery that hit several miles away. Of course all of that action was aimed at us, and we were really under direct attack, according to their breathless reports. I could not reach the hatch to see much, and with my bullet-proof vest and Kevlar helmet, I could barely hold myself vertical. So I huddled in the corner with my two cameras hugged to my body, dodging boots, not bullets, that came a little too close, and feet that I feared might have snapped me in two as bodies came landing alongside me, just missing my vitals.

It's been a few days since that momentous night, March 20. We were some of the first to enter Iraq but have seen little action as we progress north. Being that we are a tank battalion, it is not good strategy to enter smaller towns where we cannot maneuver the streets and may damage sewage lines, etc. So we work our way west and let the infantry take the towns and cities of Basra and An Nasiriyah.

I am frustrated to not be exposed to any action, continuing to make pictures of Marines sleeping, convoying, surviving dust storms and forever getting ready for battles that never materialize. I came to cover a war, but covering it independently has become so dangerous that my bosses won't permit me to consider anything but traveling with the military.

Stories of ambushes, deaths and hostages being taken to Baghdad trickle in. We have heard of reporters being killed by friendly fire and of Iraqis posing as journalists. The Marines of the Second Tank Battalion are weary of hours of dusty roads but stay on guard for possible attacks by smiling, white-banner-toting Iraqis.

Last night, we survived a nasty dust storm in our military Hummer. The wind whipped around at 60 mph, tossing our vehicle to and fro. We gasped and coughed, covering our faces and using scarves and T-shirts to filter the air. We had one casualty, a pigeon that the chem/bio guys have been keeping to help detect an attack. At 4 p.m., it was completely dark and we could not see five feet ahead of us. Being outside was like having one's face sandblasted.

I haven't had a wash in six days and am as dirty as I can recall ever being in my entire life. We are living in some of the dirtiest conditions imaginable with dust, dust and more dust everywhere.

It's not even a surprise to feel the dust grinding between my teeth. All of that, and still no bath in sight. We live in extreme heat during the day and wet chilled temperatures at night. All my companions are sick with respiratory infections. I, too, have developed a cold and appease myself from the complete misery of the situation with little bits of chocolate I bought before leaving Kuwait.

There are no more tents, no more sleeping bags, just body armor to keep one's neck propped up at night, but that also pushes one's bottom deeper into the meager cushion of the Hummer seat. There is no comfortable position. We must be ready to leave at a moment's notice.

Guns up close

A couple of nights ago, we arrived to our new camp after traveling some ungodly amount of miles with the tanks. Exhausted and cranky, I prepared to fight with my satellite phone to transmit some images from the field. Five minutes later, a 50-caliber machine gun blasted several rounds just yards from me. I was grabbed by a young infantryman and thrown to the ground, his body covering mine. He dragged me up and then pushed me toward the back of a Hummer. Eyes wide and fearful, I breathed hard and painfully as we waited for another round to fire. It was so close that our chances for escape were low if, indeed, we were under attack. Moments later, screams of "A positive!" filtered through the dark night, and we realized that someone had been hurt. It was a 26-year-old lance corporal from New York, and he was dead immediately.

A fellow tanker had accidentally pressed the safety switch on his gun while getting out of his tank, and it set the machine off, killing the lance corporal in the neighboring tank. Although I am permitted by the rules of our embedment to photograph such situations, the Marines in charge were too freaked and would not permit me to make photographs.

It's really difficult to imagine what our military personnel go through to conduct a war. It is truly the most wretched of circumstances. Even before I met up with the Marines at Camp Coyote, some hadn't had a shower in weeks.

Many suffer from trenchfoot and other unsavory conditions. Yet they continue to work as hard as they can to do their jobs right and with pride.

Love,

Cheryl

E-mail cmeyer@dallasnews.com

3/27/03

Marines Wrestle Attacks, Weather Dust Storm

ambushes disrupt tank battalion's push toward Baghdad

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dallas/world/stories/032703dnintbattalion.a61ba.html

By JIM LANDERS / The Dallas Morning News

WITH THE MARINES IN IRAQ – The Marines' 2nd Tank Battalion shook off a violent dust storm that interrupted its drive to the front and pushed on for Baghdad on Thursday.

A thick canopy of dust continued to curb visibility as the Marines advanced along Route 1, Saddam Hussein's unfinished highway that runs through the heart of Iraq.

Paramilitary forces, called Fedayeen Saddam, set ambushes Wednesday along the unpaved highway at culverts and mud huts. Marines returned fire and called in airstrikes.

Lt. Col. Mike Oehl, commander of the 2nd Tank Battalion, said the Iraqi Republican Guard had armed the Fedayeen and showed them how to fight from defensive positions.

But Republican Guard forces eluded the Marines, and they are reported to be dug in around Baghdad.

"The Fedayeen were apparently meant to harass us, to slow us down," Col. Oehl said.

"But the weather's done a better job of that."

The Marines think the assault on Route 1 caught the Iraqis by surprise, Col. Oehl said. Iraqi forces had set up defensive positions along the highway between An Nasiriyah and the city of Kut, about 20 miles east of Route 1.

The highway is not on civilian maps, but it runs parallel to and in between two major highways that go from southeast to northwest. Some of it is unpaved, and it's dotted with old concrete mixing trucks and other rusted road-making machinery.

The sustained drive took a toll on the 2nd Tank Battalion. The unit lost Lance Cpl. Eric J. Orlowski, 26, of Buffalo, N.Y., who was killed in an accidental shooting by a fellow Marine in Delta Company.

Col. Oehl also noted the lack of welcome shown his forces by Iraqi civilians.

When the battalion neared Basra last week, famished Iraqis asked for food but showed no sign of joy.

"It's a little daunting," he said. "There's no waving at us or cheering. You see yourself in one light as liberators, and you hope they see that as well. So far, they look to us for relief and with a little surprise.

"The Fedayeen, meanwhile, look on us with utter contempt."

Panning the dust, biding our time

Blasted by sand, Marines forced to wait out grinding storm

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dallas/nation/stories/032703dnnatlandispatch.acd3d.html

By JIM LANDERS / The Dallas Morning News

It seemed to come out of hell, itself. At 3 p.m. Wednesday, day turned to night. A malicious whirlwind of dirt and sand swept over the 2nd Tank Battalion of the 1st Marine Division, bringing all forward progress to a dead stop.

The tempest seemingly sucked up hundreds of miles of grit and dirt and dumped it on the Marines – just as they were getting ready to pull out and move deeper into Iraq.

Commanders abruptly decided to stay put because visibility was so bad – virtually nil.

The ferocious sandstorm, combined with winds gusting up to 50 mph, slowed operations for U.S. troops throughout Iraq through Wednesday. Even after the winds died down, thick clouds of dust hung in the air.

The storm played havoc in other ways.

A crew member on the maintenance team, working on an armored track, had his leg crushed when part of the vehicle fell on him. It took the Marine medic a half an hour to fight his way about 200 yards to reach the injured man. He and another Marine, who broke his arm in a similar accident, had to sit out the storm.

Two medevac helicopters assigned to airlift the men to a field hospital remained grounded all night waiting for the sandstorm to clear.

Four of us rode out the storm in a Humvee as first sand and then rain leaked inside.

It was unbelievable.

Under fire near Al Kut

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/Primetime/iraq_main030327.html http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/WorldNewsTonight/iraq_reporter_roundup.html

And near Al Kut, southeast of Baghdad, the 1st Marine Division came under Iraqi artillery, mortar and small-arms fire, and was forced to turn back and use a different route, said ABCNEWS' Mike Cerre, who is with the unit.

Elements Taking Toll On Advancing Troops http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/iraq/ny-woroad0327,0,2516994.story?coll=ny-nationworld-world-utility

(Complete Text)

By Letta Tayler Staff Correspondent

March 27, 2003 Central Iraq

-- The young rifleman's voice crackled with urgency. "We're 99 percent sure we've spotted a T-55 [Iraqi tank] about 700 meters from our troops," he said.

Inside a nearby amphibious assault vehicle, the fire support team for the U.S. Marines Regimental Combat Team 5's Golf Company, 2nd Battalion, immediately began preparing a possible strike against the suspected enemy location.

"Call in the 81s," fire support team leader Lt. Phillip Sprincin ordered, referring to 81-mm mortar rounds.

"I'm sorry, sir," came the reply when Sprincin's request was radioed farther back in the company's convoy. "The 81s are stuck in traffic."

On paper, at least, war can be a tidy affair. But even with their overwhelming military superiority, U.S. ground forces have found the road to Baghdad fraught with pitfalls. They include nebulous targets, deadly ambushes, blinding sandstorms and -- traffic jams.

The combined effect has been to slow the ground advance into Iraq after a surprisingly swift initial assault. U.S. military officials insist the setbacks are minor and say they're still on schedule. But in Regimental Combat Team 5, at least, the lengthy stops, sudden starts and increasing number of nights with almost no sleep are taking a toll.

"I'm sick of war. I'm sick of Iraq. I'm sick of being dirty," groaned Cpl. Ryan Eman, 22, a mortar forward observer for Golf Company, as a blinding sandstorm coated him and other Marines with layers of sand and grounded his unit for about five hours Tuesday.

As the sandstorm ebbed, Golf Company staggered forward in a rainstorm at about 2 mph. Disembarking from their armored vehicles as cold winds whipped across the desert, troops had to roll out their sleeping bags and bivvy sacks near midnight in ankle-deep mud.

Earlier in the week, military traffic jams made Iraq's major highways look like the Long Island Expressway at rush hour. But the vehicles stretching as far as the eye could see were tanks, Humvees, amphibious assault vehicles, and 7-ton supply trucks loaded with ammunition, and the scenery included undulating lines of camels. Many military units were traveling at 4 mph in vehicles that can move six to seven times that speed.

Partly, the traffic snarls were because of the fact that in Iraq, a country the size of California and far less developed, "there just aren't enough roads to support all these military vehicles," said Capt. Myle Hammond, Golf Company commander. The slowdowns also were because of battles with Iraqi forces or surprise ambushes by groups of Iraqi militia such as the Fedayeen. While the skirmishes continued with these groups at the northern end of U.S. military convoys, thousands of forces often were bottle-necked to the south.

At least twice, incoming enemy machine-gun fire or artillery has forced 2nd Battalion Marines from their sleeping bags and back on the move after just an hour or two of sleep.

"I love the sound of machine-gun fire in the morning," quipped 2nd Lt. Mike McDowell, a forward observer with the fire support team in Golf Company, as he scrambled from the incoming fire one recent night before dawn.

Equipment shortages and breakdowns also are causing delays. Yesterday morning, some platoon leaders in Golf Company were searching for extra AA batteries that hadn't yet been relayed up to the front.

Even before the invasion, up to 10 percent of Golf Company's equipment, from radios to machine guns, was on the blink, after weeks of wear and tear during training in the desert, Hammond said. With replacement parts scarce, units are towing broken-down vehicles and other equipment to cannibalize.

When vehicles break down, troops sometimes are left waiting inside them in the dark, miles from their units, until they can be towed or repaired. Or the troops are packed into other passing vehicles.

Lance Cpl. Joseph Zoleta, a Golf Company infantryman from Bayside, was among 17 Marines riding Tuesday night in an amphibious assault vehicle that broke down on the road. He was packed into another passing vehicle with 23 other Marines -- jammed like "boat refugees," he said. "I worry about the fighting," Zoleta said, "but right now, it's the traveling that's killing me."

Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.

'We Have Contact,'

And The Ambush Is On Marine 2nd Battalion Crushes Small Resistance Pocket, But Suffers First Casualty

http://www.nynewsday.com/news/nationworld/iraq/ny-wofire0328.story complete text:

By Letta Tayler Staff Correspondent

March 27, 2003, 6:49 PM EST

Hantush Airstrip, Iraq --

The Marines of the 2nd Battalion rumbled up Highway 1 Thursday with no hint of danger in sight. They passed a sleepy village to the left. Cows grazed in a dazzlingly green field near a cluster of brown adobe houses under an azure, morning sky. Suddenly, the fight came, seemingly out of nowhere. It pounded like hail on a tin roof. Bullets in rapid fire hit the left side of one of the amphibious assault vehicles, rolling metal boxes used to transport Marines.

"We have contact on our left!" a Marine yelled inside the troop transport as he ducked the gunfire that flew overhead. He and his fellow Marines were in their first battle of the war. They all knew they could be attacked by Iraqi militiamen. Some had even been thirsting for it. But, still, they were shocked when it became clear men were trying to kill them.

When the assault came, the four amphibious assault vehicles were riding in a line toward the airstrip that belonged to the fire support team. A unit endowed with the power of gods, able to summon heavily armed, attack helicopters in the sky. But in this war, with the world watching, they had to use that power very carefully. So there they were with rockets and cannons and heavy artillery at their disposal, unable or unwilling to use them for fear of injuring or killing civilians.

The battle was a small one in the scheme of the entire war. But it is like dozens, maybe hundreds of others that have been and will be waged during the invasion of Iraq. Each time, coalition soldiers face a deadly dilemma: Defend yourself with certain and devastating force and risk killing civilians and inviting the world's harsh judgement. Or fight with caution and risk getting killed.

Through the haze created of dust and fear and the sudden burst of bullets, the men firing from the village appeared to be mere shadows between the tents and dirt huts.

They had apparently been lying in wait for the convoy to pass. The first vehicles to come under fire were the four amphibious assault vehicles attached to Golf Company, 2nd battalion, which was spearheading Marine Regimental Combat Team 5's movement toward the strategically important airstrip, a few miles away. Their assignment was to secure the airstrip for use by coalition forces during their assault on Baghdad about 70 miles to the north. The allies hope to use the airstrip as a staging area.

The team swerved its vehicle to face the house and tent. Seconds later, more machine gun volleys rocked the vehicle, this time from behind.

"They're on our ass!" a Marine screamed. "Someone's up on that roof!" another yelled, pointing to a third building. "They're behind those trees!" another shrieked.

Amphibious assault vehicles can travel 20 miles an hour and carry up to 18 soldiers. It rides on tank treads and its front end resembles the bow of a boat. On land, it can turn on a pivot and repel small arms fire, that is bullets less than 15 millimeters in size. Its weaponry is limited to a top-mounted machine gun, as it is primarily a transport vehicle, not an attack vehicle.

Within seconds, the fire support team and Marines from several other Golf Company vehicles began returning fire with M-16s jutting from their roof hatches and 50-caliber heavy machine guns mounted on turrets. The Marines presumed their attackers to be Iraqi militia, perhaps Fedayeen. They had to weigh their restraint and possible civilian casualties against the possibility that the militia possessed rocket-propelled grenades or other heavy artillery, any of which could have destroyed the transport vehicles and killed the men inside.

The Marines decided to keep the helicopters in reserve. The Iraqi attackers had already exhausted the element of surprise.

Attackers could be seen running from a house about 50 yards to the Marine convoy's left and from a large nearby tent adorned with a giant poster of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. The Fedayeen are members of a deadly, Iraqi military-backed militia loyal to Hussein that had been staging attacks on other U.S. forces over the past week, often traveling along canals that weave through the marshes of central Iraq.

"Holy ----!" hollered another Marine as their vehicle took more incoming fire. "Let's level them!" urged another, pushing for the use of big guns.

Curses, yelps of fear and howls of excitement mingled with the sound of gunfire over the next 45 minutes. Most of the Marines in the fire support track were young men who hadn't been in combat before. But they'd been training for months, or in some cases years.

In the first few days of war, they'd heard Iraqi artillery rounds and Scud missiles fire in their direction and even watched in horror as U.S. F-18 fighter jets accidentally bombed a camp they were sleeping in -- fortunately, without causing casualties. But this was their first close-up enemy encounter in which they pulled their own triggers. And in some cases, this was the first time they had killed. In the lingo of the Marines, they finally were "getting some."

Cprl. Mark Hylen, 22, of Brownsville, Calif., at one point trained his M-16 on an armed man running toward him. He fired without hesitation and saw the man drop. "It didn't feel like much; he was shooting at me," Hylen said evenly when asked later what it was like to kill another human being for the first time. "It was kind of nice to get it out of the way." He paused for a minute, then appeared to dismiss whatever thought was emerging. "Screw him," he said. "He died."

Cobra attack helicopters buzzed overhead, but held their fire. Ultimately, the Marines contained the fighting with only small weapons fire. This time, they guessed correctly. The attackers hadn't used heavy artillery that could have punched the amphibious assault vehicles like "Swiss cheese," as one Marine put it.

With most of the shooting coming from inside the houses or tents, the Marines didn't know how many they'd killed, or for that matter whether or not they had suffered casualties. For the moment, it appeared they were all safe. Vulnerable to American technology and artillery, the Iraqis had only the calculated restraint of the Marines to even the fight. In the end, it was not much of a match.

By the time Golf Company rolled onto the airstrip, other units within Regimental Combat Team 5 had almost finished securing the area. They'd met only scant pockets of resistance as Hussein's notorious Republican Guards, who reportedly had been heading south to defend the airstrip, never materialized.

As groups of women and children ran from homes and huddled in groups outside, platoons fanned out on foot, M-16s and SAW machine guns ready, to search the area. One squad radioed in that they'd spotted enemy weapons inside a mud hut in a nearby pasture. Golf Company's fire support team radioed in a call for 21 81-mm mortar rounds, which erupted with a quick succession of thuds, pummeling the hut. The fire support team roared with approval. They'd finally seen the more intensive mortar attack they had thirsted to launch on their adversaries a few miles back.

When the smoke cleared, all that was left standing was a cow, placidly grazing on the same patch of grass where it had been eating before the mortars hit.

Within a few hours, Golf Company members already were reminiscing about the firefight, polishing details and savoring the drama of the war story they imagined one day telling their children and grandchildren.

"I'm proud of you. You finally broke out your guns. Your war virginity has been lost," Gunnery Sgt. Jean Miller, who is in charge of Golf Company's amphibious assault vehicles, praised his Marines over the radio.

That was before word was passed around that a Marine riding just three vehicles up from the Golf Company fire support team had been killed in the morning ambush, shot while riding in his Humvee. He was the first Marine to die from the 2nd batallion. Suddenly, the bravura waned a little.

"I can't believe we lost one of our Marines," said Lance Cprl. Christopher Akins, 21, of Louisville, Ky., as he leaned back in the track and toyed with his M-16. "It could have been one of us."

Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.

MARINES BUILD MUSCLE:

http://www.nydailynews.com/03-27-2003/news/wn_report/story/70489p-65561c.html complete text

The 1st Marine Division and a task force from the 2nd Division battled their way across bridges at Nassiriya yesterday and rolled up Route 7 - a highway that leads to the eastern approach of Baghdad.
Fuel problems and repeated ambushes hampered the drive, according to reporters embedded with the units.
A potential flashpoint is the garrison town of Kut, about 100 miles southeast of Baghdad and defended by 8,000 to 10,000 Republican Guards, according to defense analysts.
It's not clear whether the town's defenders, primarily an infantry unit, will prefer a street fight inside Kut or are entrenched outside. They also may be backed up by the armored Al Nedaa Division.
The leathernecks are traveling light in Humvees and Amtrac amphibious carriers. They have cover from attack helicopters and at least 60 M1A1 Abrams tanks - armor that could be doubled or tripled if other battalions are called in to back them up.
The lumbering convoy has been the target of repeated attacks, which the Marines have fought off. Journalists with the unit reported scores of mangled bodies and destroyed vehicles on the road after Marine convoys had passed.
The Marines, who are light on armor, appear to be an unusual choice for forced march and urban assault.
"The Marines are not designed to do this kind of warfare, the deep in-country, ground-intensive drives," said defense expert Patrick Garrett of GlobalSecurity.org.
But he said any attack on the Republican Guard units in Kut would likely first involve massive air strikes, followed by artillery missions. The grunts would be left to "pick up pieces," he said

3/28/03

Nightly news -- Mike Cerre says the troops had their first chance for hygiene tasks since starting out.

(I suggest searching yahoo news photos for Itsuo Inouye ...kimmarie)

Mike Cerre, with the 1st Marine Division 10 a.m. ET U.S.; 6 p.m. Iraq Marines are used to having no supplies. There's plenty of food and water, but there is not much in the way of parts. We've had a very critical maintenance problem in that our amphibious assault vehicles have been breaking down on a regular basis because we have been going so fast and so far, much faster then they were designed for. As a result, they're breaking down and there are not enough parts to repair them. They have had to scavenge parts. We have not used much ammunition, we have not had that much contact, so there is no critical need for ammunition at this point. Since we are stretched out very thin, I think there is a concern that if something were to happen, we would not have the supply lines to replenish what we need.

Ruse draws Iraqi forces into air, artillery fire

http://washingtontimes.com/world/20030328-1010801.htm

By Richard Tomkins

UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL WITH THE 5TH MARINES, Iraq

— Iraqi armor and infantry were pummeled with air strikes and artillery fire yesterday after falling for a trap that lured the Iraqis into vacated U.S. positions in the central part of the country.

The armored unit, including Soviet-made tanks, were approaching vacated positions across the open desert when two Navy F-14 aircraft swooped down from a bright, clear sky — the first after three days of fierce sandstorms — and released laser-guided missiles and bombs.

Cobra helicopter gunships then buzzed in lower, firing Gatling guns and rockets. Plumes of smoke could be seen in the distance from the burning hulks.

Troops of 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, meanwhile, were attacking a regional airport about two hours away by slow-moving armored troop carrier. Two Marines were killed by small-arms fire. Word on Iraqi casualties was not immediately available.

"It was a feint and they fell for it," Gunnery Sgt. Ron Jenks of Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, told United Press International.

"We really lit them up," added Capt. Shawn Basco, an F-18 pilot acting as a forward air controller for the company.

Earlier in the day, the Marines had vacated an area near a highway where militia had ambushed a Marine column. In a regiment-sized movement, the Marines took to the road and swung toward the airport to the northwest as if to attack it in force.

As hoped, the Iraqi tanks and infantry, which had been turned back Tuesday when they approached the column farther south, then moved in to exploit what they thought was a situation that would bring them in behind the Marines on the move.

The fighting yesterday was the culmination of a four-day march from the southern Rumeila oil fields, seized and secured by the Marines in the hours after the 5th Battalion became the first U.S. unit to enter Iraq at the start of the ground war to unseat Saddam Hussein and disarm Iraq.

Additional information could not be disclosed immediately for security reasons.

However, Marines had dug in last night, arrayed to repel and destroy any Iraqi attack.

The earlier Iraqi ambushes that began Tuesday afternoon resulted in minimal Marine casualties. A Navy medic died from mortar fire as he tended to a wounded comrade.

"Some of these guys must have gone to Fort Benning [Ga.] at one time or another," said Capt. Jason Smith, commander of Bravo Company, 1st Battalion. "The ambushes are right out of the book — ambush, ambush again as the target either withdraws or moves forward to consolidate. They also have the road boxed in for the mortars."

The attackers, challenged by the 3rd Battalion, apparently came from a militia training school nearby. Their casualty figure was not immediately available. Some surrendered.

Though they have not endured a chemical-weapon attack in the dash into Iraq, the Marines are in their chemical-protection suits, gas masks in small bags attached to their belts. The suits slowly bake the Marines during hot days but at night offer help against muscle-cramping cold.

"OK, are we having fun yet? I know it's miserable, but we're all in the same boat. Keep your spirits up; keep your guard up," 1st Sgt. Bill Leuthe of Bravo Company told troops as he moved down the line of armored tracks carrying his charges. "I know it was cold last night, but so what. Heat up for MREs, guys. It will hit the spot." MREs are meals ready to eat.

3/29/03

For Warring Marines, Few Conveniences of Home

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/iraq/ny-wobook0329.story

Letta Tayler Staff Correspondent

March 29, 2003 Central Iraq --

It was a scheme worthy of Mata Hari. The day before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, commanders within the U.S. Marines' Regimental Combat Team 5 issued the following order to their troops: Don't shave your upper lips.

The plan, as explained by superiors, was for the Marines to grow mustaches by the time they seized the Rumaila oil fields in southern Iraq two days hence. Iraqi soldiers would see the mustaches and conclude they were mandatory for Marines.

Thus the Iraqis themselves would grow mustaches if, as rumor had it, they were planning on dressing as U.S. troops to commit civilian atrocities that they would then blame on the Americans.

But, unbeknownst to the Iraqis, the Marines would shave their mustaches as soon as they left Rumaila. That way, if any atrocities were committed by mustached troops in U.S. military uniform, the world would know they were the work of Iraqis.

"That is about the dumbest thing I have heard in my entire life,” groused one lance corporal upon receiving the word. "And how many of us are going to be able to grow mustaches in two days?”

Indeed, most of the young men who comprise America's bravest boasted little more than peach fuzz or a trace of upper-lip stubble as they rolled into Rumaila. They shaved with relief the following day.

* * * Moving north from the stark desert of southern Iraq, a miles-long convoy of the Marine Regimental Combat Team 5 prepared to cross the mighty Euphrates River. Lt. Mike McDowell, 32, a former English teacher from Idaho, decided the moment was right for a history lesson. Turning to the dozen Marines crammed inside an amphibious assault vehicle with him, McDowell explained that the troops were poised to roll into what was once Mesopotamia, the ancient cradle of civilization that spawned Babylon, the first legal system, and even the Biblical Garden of Eden.

"For those of you of Judeo-Christian faith, this is where it all began,” McDowell enthused.

Most of the other Marines stared back at him in disbelief. Cpl. Danny Johnson, 23, of Lake Dallas, Texas, popped up from his seat and stared out the ceiling hatch at the scruffy landscape, broken only by a highway and an occasional camel or sheep. There wasn't a single mall, fast-food joint or movie theater in sight. "If this is the cradle of civilization,” Johnson said, "then I don't know what civilization is.”

* * * Marines traveling into Iraq have received a list of phrases in Arabic to help them converse with Iraqi civilians or prisoners-of-war. But a regular English-language phrase book may not suffice for Iraqis wishing to chat with Marines.

An Iraqi needing to use the bathroom, for instance, should say, "I need to make a head call.” If he or she were to see artillery coming into an area, the appropriate warning would be, "Arty on the deck!”

If an Iraqi were offered an MRE, he or she would want to know that means a Meal-Ready-to Eat, and the affirmative answer would be Roger or Check.

If willing to obey an order, they'd be best off saying, "Good to go.”

Marines travel in amphibious assault vehicles they call hogs or tracks. The windowless cabin inside the track is known as the dungeon.

"BCs” is the term they use for clunky, horn-rimmed U.S. military-issue glasses. That's short for birth control.

All Marines are Devil Dogs, a moniker they received during World War I from awed Germans, who declared them to be "Teufel Hunde.” Bottom-of-the-ladder infantrymen proudly call themselves grunts, but generally reserve the terms jarheads, a reference to their buzz cuts, or earth pigs, for sleeping in trenches and mud, for other infantrymen. Everyone above the rank of grunt is a POG, short for Personnel Other than Grunt.

All Marines, however, are "boots,” -- someone fresh out of boot camp -- to someone with seniority. "You spend 20 years in the Marine Corps and there's always that sergeant major who'll call you boot,” said Gunnery Sgt. Eugene Miller, a 17-year veteran.

* * * One of the great advantages the U.S. military is touting in the current Gulf War is improvements in its field rations, known as MREs, or Meals-Ready-to-Eat.

Dismissed by troops in the 1991 Gulf War as "Meals Rejected by Everybody,” the new and improved MREs come in 24 different flavors, from Jambalaya to Pasta Alfredo and Meat Loaf.

The size of a paperback, they are packaged in foil and can be heated in 15 minutes or less by placing them in a bag with water that activates a chemical heating strip. The hot main course is supplemented by side dishes, desert and packets of instant coffee or tea -- used only by the hardest-core caffeine addicts since they must be mixed with cold water.

Most troops agree that MREs, introduced in the 1980s, are an improvement over the old C-rations, tins of food whose legacy is mistakenly linked to Spam, but has no association to the luncheon meat.

But many offerings, including Beef with Mushrooms and Thai Chicken, are routinely likened to the desert sand for texture and taste. The chocolate pound cake is considered second to the M-16 as a reliable hand weapon. A tube of Jalapeño cheese spread, however, is "gold,” particularly for smearing on a black-bean burrito or hamburger. That makes it a hot trading item -- worth perhaps two pineapple pound cakes or even a chocolate shake mix. Equally coveted is cocoa powder, which can be mixed with crackers, peanut butter and water to make pudding.

MREs have generated superstition as well as bartering. In Golf Company, 2nd battalion, finding green chewing gum in your MRE means your wife is cheating on you. If you get two Tootsie-Rolls and don't give one away, chances are you'll die. If you eat the Charms, packets of hard candy, "it'll rain,” explains Cpl. Ryan Eman, 22, of Michigan.

When Golf Company pulled out of a camp one recent night after a rain storm, piles of unopened Charms littered both sides of the highway.

Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.

ABC nightly news update --- Mike Cerre reports that the group is holding position and repairing equipment. He states the marines hate to lose their momentum, but they had received there first good nights sleep since the invasion started, and had a chance to get some water on their faces.

Mike Cerre, with the 1st Marine Division in central Iraq 9 a.m. ET; 5 p.m. Iraq Our unit has been using this indeterminate delay to search for some of the Fedayeen and local militia troops that have been harassing our positions with rocket and mortar fire the past few days. We're also trying to catch up on some critical maintenance issues, which have sidelined many of our amphibious assault vehicles, and, almost equally important, is to try to address some personal hygiene issues that we've totally ignored the past nine days while we've been on the move. Since the Marines never know when they're going to be stopping or how long they'll be stopped for, they try to use every available minute to work on their gear and themselves.

http://www.nytimes.com/

Military officials also went to some lengths today to explain further the "pause" in the military campaign against Baghdad mentioned by some commanders in the field. Some reports spoke of a pause of up to six days to secure the army's rear area. "I would not call it a pause," Capt. Al Lockwood, a spokesman for the British defense staff said. "It's purely a case of shaping the battlefield, getting our troops equipped and in the right place for the next part of the campaign." One meeting of battlefield officers this week reviewed a plan of advance that showed the Third Infantry attacking Baghdad from the southwest, while the First Marine Expeditionary Force splits into components of three, 6,000 man attacking forces attacking from the south and southeast. Under this plan, the British 16th Airborne Assault Brigade, along with units of the 7th Armored Brigade known as the Desert Rats combine as an attack formation from the direction of Kut in the east.

3/30/03

Remembering a fallen friend

Marines pause for memorial

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dallas/world/stories/033003dnintremember.2b98b.html

By JIM LANDERS / The Dallas Morning News

NEAR AFAK, Central Iraq –

Saturday brought a rare moment of rest and remembrance for the weary Marines, who had battled violent sandstorms, hit-and-run enemies and fatigue for days.

The beleaguered supply line brought fresh deliveries of food, water, fuel and ammunition to 1st Marine Division's 2nd Tank Battalion. Some of the men washed their socks. A few went so far as to wash their hair. There was even talk of mail call for the first time since the men left Camp Grizzly in Kuwait two weeks ago on St. Patrick's Day.

But they devoted part of their precious break to the memory of the unit's first casualty, a young Marine reservist, with the nickname "O-Dogg."

The chaplain, Navy Lt. Anthony Bezy, asked the Marines to take a moment to remember Lance Cpl. Eric Orlowski, of south Buffalo, N.Y.

"He lived out his life in faith. He said 'no' to being a victim. He said 'yes' to God," Lt. Bezy said.

Cpl. Orlowski was one of 95 reservists from the 8th Tank Battalion in Syracuse, N.Y., who joined the "Masters of the Iron Horse" to form Delta Company.

He was killed a week ago, after the 2nd Tank Battalion's charge across the border and deep into central Iraq. When the unit finally paused, the tanks pulled into a camp lit by chemical light sticks. Cpl. Orlowski was standing on his tank. One tank over, a radio call came in. The tank driver jumped into the turret to respond. As he did, his hand hit the butterfly trigger of a .50-caliber machine gun.

Cpl. Orlowski, "O-Dogg" to his Delta Company buddies, was hit in the neck, chest and groin. The unit's doctor said later that Cpl. Orlowski probably died before he hit the ground.

Maj. Pat Cox, Delta Company's commander, said the safety on the .50-caliber was missing a screw – something that can rattle loose when the tanks move long distances with little time for maintenance.

Since March 20, the 2nd Tank Battalion has moved more than 200 miles into Iraq.

Cpl. Orlowski was 26 years old. He left behind a 3-year-old daughter, Cameron Lee, whom he was raising on his own.

"He was a big kid, a union worker, one of those guys who never was discouraged by anything," Maj. Cox said.

First Sgt. Lew Dusett remembered O-Dogg as a great Marine. The Corps takes great pride in its "devil dogs" nickname.

"I never heard him cuss," Sgt. Dusett said. "He'd do any damn thing you'd want."

Added Maj. Cox: "He did everything like his daughter was standing next to him all the time."

In war, death loses its stature.

Last week, the 2nd Tank Battalion passed two corpses of Iraqi soldiers lying in the highway. Vehicles had run over the bodies several times. As the Marines drove by, the men gazed at the bodies. But some said later they felt nothing.

Friday night, a Marine in a reconnaissance unit stepped on an unexploded cluster bomblet fired earlier in the week by Marine artillery. The bomblet took off his foot, and cut an artery in his thigh.

Blood replacement units revived him for a short while, when he joked to his fellow Marines that he was the lucky one because he was going home. But it took 90 minutes to medically evacuate the Marine, and he died.

More than 100 cluster bomblets were blown up in controlled explosions around 2nd Tank Battalion's positions Saturday.

But eliminating the buried grief over Cpl. Orlowski's death proved a harder task.

"We commend him to you and your everlasting care," Lt. Bezy prayed. "His daughter is with her grandparents now. Help her to know how much she was loved by her father."

The chaplain offered Delta Company troops a chance to express their feelings. It was a hard moment. Several Marines were in tears.

Finally, Capt. Eric Lindgren, executive officer of Delta Company, spoke up.

"I hope I can live up to what he did. He never whined. He never complained," Capt. Lindgren said. "Sacrifice was his very essence. I pray for that."

Sgt. Scott Woodley held up his helmet, where "O-Dogg" was written in large letters.

"O-Dogg was one of the best guys I ever met," Sgt. Woodley said. "I keep it on my helmet. From here on out, my strength is O-Dogg."

E-mail jlanders@dallasnews.com

Finally, a Mission For LI Marine, mostly a waiting game

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/iraq/ny-womari303198296mar30,0,2915841.story?coll=ny%2Dtop%2Dadrail

Letta Tayler STAFF CORRESPONDENT

March 30, 2003 Central Iraq

- Lance Cpl. John Terrone moved stealthily west last night across the clumps of scrub and sand, M-16 in hand, scanning the dark horizon for Iraqi militia.

The Mastic native was the third Marine to creep through a breach in a tangle of concertina wire and enter a vast, diamond-shaped ammunitions depot dotted with dozens of rectangular adobe buildings with only tiny slits for windows.

Snipers scouting the compound the night before had reported some of the buildings were stuffed with ammunition and weapons - and that about 20 Iraqi militia armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades frequented the area. Just a few miles away lurked as many as 10 Iraqi T-55 tanks and members of Saddam Hussein's feared Republican Guard. Marines also had received reports that suicide bombers might be planning attacks against U.S. forces in the area.

Terrone, 20, a William Floyd High School graduate who said he joined the Marines "because I had never really challenged myself," couldn't help thinking he might be an easy target as he sprinted from the breach toward the buildings, which appeared ghostly yellow through his night-vision goggles.

But soon he was too busy to dwell on fear as he and his fellow Marines surrounded and searched the buildings, which were indeed stocked floor to ceiling with ammunition. Then his platoon, along with other forces in Golf Company, 2nd Battalion, Marine Regimental Combat Team 5, secured the compound.

Twice, the cries of "Gas! Gas! Gas!" sent Terrone and the other Marines diving for their gas masks and other gear designed to protect them from a biological or chemical attack. Both proved to be false alarms, and with no Iraqis in sight, militia or otherwise, neither Terrone nor the others fired a single shot.

If it wasn't exactly the battle of the century, Terrone was nevertheless elated.

"At least we finally did something," he said with a grin as he prepared for a night patrol around the ammunitions depot. "OK, we didn't encounter enemy, but nothing's perfect."

For most of the past week, Terrone has been moving in what seemed to be circles in Central Iraq, crammed inside a fume-filled amphibious assault vehicle and fretting that the Marines and other U.S. forces weren't advancing to Baghdad.

The announcement Friday that U.S. and British forces would wait four to six more days before moving forward because of supply shortages and stiff Iraqi resistance put him down even further. So had word that a ranking officer in Regimental Combat Team 5 had been killed and a gunnery sergeant in the same unit had lost both legs when military vehicles accidentally ran over them as they slept Friday night in the same camp where Terrone was based. Another Marine in the unit lost a leg when he stepped on unexploded ordnance from a cluster bomb U.S. forces had dropped in a field several days earlier.

In a final blow to morale, Terrone and other 2nd Battalion members had spent the previous three nights and two of the past three days camped in a dump loaded with rusted, empty chemical barrels, busted car radiators and old tires.

"Of all the places to be in Iraq, why a landfill?" Terrone had groaned the previous day from the fighting hole he'd dug into a mass of filthy rags, old shoes and rusted tin cans. As he sat in the filth, he ate his lunch: a foil container of lukewarm Jambalaya Meal-Ready-to-Eat, which he downed with a dusty plastic spoon.

The sun beat down on his face and warmed the garbage, sending a nauseating stench through the air as he swatted hordes of flies from his food. "The fact that we're just sitting here means it'll take that much longer to go home," he predicted.

After securing the ammunitions depot last night, Terrone said his recurring thought was: "It sure beats sitting in a dump."

The 2nd Battalion moved to take the compound both because it contained weapons and because the battalion wanted to take an aggressive stance against Iraqi troops even as it waited several days to push north, according to Marine officials.

"The intention is to seize back the initiative, expand our battle space and hunt and destroy Iraqi forces," said Golf Company Capt. Myle Hammond as he prepped his troops earlier in the day.

Asked later if it was a bonus that the operation boosted troop morale as well as sending the Iraqis a message that U.S. forces weren't just standing still, Hammond grinned and replied, "Definitely."

Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.

3/31/03

Mike Cerre ABC morning News 5:45 P.M. Iraqi time

Mike Cerre reported that after holding for 3 days, they were once again on the move towards Baghdad. He stated that they had made more miles that morning than any other day and that the convoy took all 4 lanes of the road, blocking traffic in both directions, but that they saw no civilian traffic. He also stated that they were able to hear airstrikes in front of them. When questioned about supply deficiencies, he stated that they are limited to one MRE per day and water is only for drinking purposes.